Alcohol consumption and sudden unexpected death in epilepsy: experimental approach

• Autor(a) principal: ScorzaI,Carla A.
• Data de Publicação: 2009
• Outros Autores: Cysneiros,Roberta M., Arida,Ricardo M., Terra,Vera C., Machado,Hélio R., Almeida,Antonio-Carlos G. de, Cavalheiro,Esper A., Scorza,Fulvio A.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Arquivos de neuro-psiquiatria (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0004-282X2009000600008
• topic: epilepsy; alcohol; heart; seizure; SUDEP

Using the pilocarpine model of epilepsy, we investigated the effects of alcohol consumption on the frequency of seizures in animals with epilepsy as well the underlying a possible association between alcohol intake and sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) occurrence. Rats were divided randomly into two groups: (A) rats with epilepsy and (B) rats with epilepsy that received a daily dose of ethanol solution (350 mg kg-1, i.p.) for 30 days. The basal frequency of seizures observed in the A and B groups during the first 30 days were 3.4±1.5 and 3.2±1.9 seizures per week per animal, respectively. In B group, it was observed a significant seizure increase (11.6±5.3) during the first 2 weeks of alcohol administration and quite interesting, one rat died suddenly after a generalized tonic-clonic seizure during this period. We concluded in our experimental study that exist a possible association between alcohol abuse and SUDEP occurrence.